23 October 2013

San Francisco Launched its Bike Share

San
Francisco is doing a great job to increase the space allocated
to cyclists in the streets of the city by the bay. The
Municipality is driven by the SF Bike Coalition which does amazing work to make sure cyclists find a place in this so unique
urban place.

At
the end of August, the Municipality of San Francisco launched a bike
sharing system named Bay Area Bike Share (BABS).

The
bike station network does not cover all the city yet. The stations
are mostly installed along Market Street, in Downtown and SoMa. They
are also set
up in
several cities of the Silicon Valley : Redwood City, Palo Alto,
Mountain View and San Jose. The idea is to co-locate train and bike
stations to offer to the Caltrain
users a way to finish their journey by bike. BABS is still a
small-scale pilot program; 700 bikes are available, half of which are
located in San Francisco. But articles and statements from the
Municipality indicate that the project has plans to expand into more neighborhoods in order to better serve commuters. We know from past experience that several bike share
projects have started as a test and their network has grown after a
while once all the benefits of the system can be seen and experienced. We wish to BABS a lot of success!

The
system set
up in
the Bay Area is created by the same company as those in Washington D.C., New York
City, and Minneapolis. It's an efficient, easy to use system and the
bike is pleasant
to ride for short journeys.

We
could imagine that one day, a common subscription would be valid in
all these cities. Meaning that, when you travel from one city to
another you keep on using the same system to rent a bike. This idea
would require that cities work together and harmonize their pricing
policy. It won't be easy to achieve, but city officials should keep it in mind as they expand their individual systems, as it could facilitate more bicycle commuting across the country.

Coming
back to the BABS, it is a bike share system created mainly for the
local people. Since the network covers a limited part of the city, it is clear that the system was not designed primarily for tourists. So far, it's most useful for employees who work in SoMa or Downtown. San Francisco should
really develop the network to make this bike-share work more
efficiently. For instance, expanding the network in districts like Mission, Castro,
Hayes Valley would definitely allow greater access for more users.

Generally
speaking, engineers are installing bike share stations wherever
they can find a free spot within the public domain. Ideally, these locations could be better matched to fit the needs and interests of cyclists. In San Francisco, some bike
stations are located as close as possible to the pavement but others
are in the middle of the public space and not next to the bike lane.

I also want to use this blog post to highlight the amazing work being done by the SF Bike Coalition for the city and its cyclists.
They educate riders,
lobby the
Municipality to develop more bike infrastructure and organize dedicated
events. They also work to create a strong urban cycling culture in SF, turning
this hilly town into a city for cyclists.

Kilometres cycled by Copenhageners so far today

Copenhagenize.com is the blog of Copenhagenize Design Company. Online since 2007 and highlighting the cycling life in Copenhagen and around the world.

40 years ago Copenhagen was just as car-clogged as anywhere else but now 41% of the population arriving at work or education do so on bicycles, from all over the Metro area. 56% of Copenhageners themselves use bicycles each day. They all use over 1000 km of bicycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen for their journeys. Copenhagenizing is possible anywhere.